Another weekend, another con in Sheffield! Getting up fairly early I popped into Patriot Games (short walk from the train station) and then tried out the Smoke Barbecue place just up the road from it. Then to the Garrison to plan for yet more games in May's cottagecon.

Saturday morning was my first and only QueueCon slot, and I managed to get into Paul Lawerences Quick and the Undead. I was the Man with No Name, so didnt get to talk much, as I revisited the Deadlands and played lots of spaghetti western themes as we kicked ass and had some fun and camaderie. However by the 3rd or 4th fight, I was remembering why I struggled with Savage Worlds as a system.

Saturday Afternoon was my 'request game' of Andrew Watson- a rerun of his Tourney of the Hand Hot War game (basically the first half of Game of Thrones novel) as my Petyr Baelish was awful in kidnapping Arya (so I could leverage the families grief into courting Sansa) and Eddard made a bold move in introducing Gendry to King Robert and suceeding in naming him heir on Roberts deathbed. A Stark/Baelish alliance definitely scares the Lannister, even if we'll still have a civil war.

Saturday Night was some more Andrew Watson Hot War excellence with Sons of Anarchy - Jax, Clay, Gemma and Tara all did terrible things as our guns were stolen and the ATF were on ours and Tara's trail (again basically the start of Season 1). Greatly enjoyed exorcising our dark sides with some great players.

Sunday morning and it was back to Savage Worlds - Hell on Earth by Gaz as I played a cyborg with a death wish who wound up calling down an orbital nuke on our location to kill the evil Warlord. Once more the round by round combats slowed us down without threatening us, which made me long for homebrewed AD&D Wandering Damage tables (the theory being that Wandering Encounter combats would generally damage PC's but not kill them, but it would take up an hour of playtime to resolve the combat- why not just roll an approximate damage total, apply it and summarise the fight without getting delayed by it). Dont get me wrong the PC's were varied and interesting, with fun little details (why did my Cyborg have Max Factor eye liner and a tamogochi? We'll never know, but the tamaogochi almost let me take an AI into firing a nuke) and the table had a good energy and fun was had. Gaz did a good job with an game that was clearly enjoyed by the players, but I'm starting to think that Savage Worlds isnt the game for me unless I was to run it with a focus on dramatic action without getting into more than 1 fight per slot.

Sunday Afternoon it was my turn to pay the piper and give one last outing to Pax Kryptonnia/ Madmen from the Stars - a Hot War DC Elseworlds game in which Kal El got grounded in the Fortress of Solitude by Jor El (and lost Lois), Lex bombed New Argo with a Kryptonite bomb and got away Scott free, whilst his patsies Bruce and Ms Tessmacher got thrown into the Phantom Zone as the Resistance leaders. A great game, that as ever ends svery differently each time, thank you to all my players.

Glad you got something out of the game! I could have provided more challenge, indeed the Atomic Priest may well have kicked your bottoms (yours in particular with his EMP blast) had you not picked a different approach to getting past! (There were other pinch points with tougher opposition you guys skirted too.)

Exploding dice can mean I've had very upset people due to random goblins or pirates eviscerating characters out of nowhere on occasion! Sunday morning my dice weren't doing very well - as others will attest, they normally explode like crazy - but point well noted, I'll certainly be escalating the danger for ShaCon, as people will probably have a better idea what they're doing and I can press harder. Feedback always appreciated.

In regards to your thoughts on Savage, I think the system lends itself to more, smaller fracas, rather than ocassional big fights, so I would expect there to be several combats in a lot of games. What brings the system more alive is using all the bells and whistles for ganging up, going wild, Tests of Will, Tricks, disarm, called shots etc. I can see how using just the basic attack / damage mechanic gets pretty dull.

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